American Roots Music at Thirsty Ear Festival 2003

Albuquerque, USA – The 5th annual Thirsty Ear Festival will take place August 29 – 31, 2003 at the Eaves Movie Ranch near Santa Fe (New Mexico). For the 5th year anniversary, the organizers are adding an evening of festivities on Friday, Aug. 29 out at the ranch in addition to their traditional pre-festival blues jam in downtown Santa Fe. And for the first time in its history, the festival is adding some spicy Cajun to the blues-folk-alt country-roots rock mix. On Saturday the outdoor Main Stage kicks off around noon with the likes of bluesmen HENRY BUTLER, COREY HARRIS, and MEM SHANNON, singer-songwriters IRIS DEMENT and KIM RICHEY, young Cajun upstarts the RED STICK RAMBLERS, and roots rocker KEN VALDEZ. On Sunday, the great GOV’T MULE presides over a lineup that includes festival favorite KENNY BROWN (often reverently referred to as the world’s greatest slide guitar player), jam master TONY FURTADO, up-and-coming blues guitar whiz ALEX MARYOL, and more.

All weekend long, the Old Hotel and Saloon stages will be buzzing with half-hour showcase sets by both regional and national talents, as well as blues jams (Corey Harris will host Saturday night’s jam, and Kenny Brown will take the helm Sunday evening) and bluegrass stomps (Santa Fe’s most popular young bluegrass band, MARY & MARS, will host stomps on both Saturday and Sunday).

Author: Angel Romero

Angel Romero y Ruiz has been writing about world music and progressive music for many years. He founded the websites worldmusiccentral.org and musicasdelmundo.com. Angel produced several specials for Metropolis (TVE) and co-produced “Musica NA”, a music show for Televisión Española (TVE) in Spain that featured an eclectic mix of world music, fusion, electronica, new age and contemporary classical music. Angel also produced and remastered world music and electronic music albums, compilations and boxed sets for Alula Records, Ellipsis Arts, Music of the World, Lektronic Soundscapes, and Mindchild Records. Angel is currently based in Durham, North Carolina.